Andrew Russell Pearson (December 13, 1897 – September 1, 1969) was an American columnist, noted for his syndicated newspaper column "Washington Merry-Go-Round". He also had a program on NBC Radio titled Drew Pearson. He was known for his approach towards high-level politicians, such as senators, cabinet members, generals and American presidents.
Early life and career Pearson was born in Evanston, Illinois, to Quaker parents Paul Martin Pearson, an English professor at Northwestern University, and Edna Rachel Wolfe Pearson. When Pearson was 6 years old, his father joined the faculty of Swarthmore College as professor of public speaking, and the family moved to Pennsylvania, joining the Society of Friends, with which the college was then affiliated. After being educated at Phillips Exeter Academy, Pearson attended Swarthmore from 1915 until 1919, where he edited its student newspaper, The Phoenix.
From 1919 to 1921, Pearson served with the American Friends Service Committee, directing postwar rebuilding operations in Peć, which at that time was part of Serbia. From 1921 to 1922, he lectured in geography at the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1923, Pearson traveled to Japan, China, New Zealand, Australia, India, and Serbia, and persuaded several newspapers to buy articles about his travels. He was also commissioned by the American "Around the World Syndicate" to produce a set of interviews entitled "Europe's Twelve Greatest Men".
In 1924, he taught industrial geography at Columbia University.
From 1925 to 1928, Pearson continued reporting on international events, including strikes in China, the Geneva Naval Conference, the Pan-American Conference in Havana, and the signing of the Kellogg-Briand Pact in Paris.
In 1929, he became the Washington correspondent for The Baltimore Sun. However, in 1931 and 1932, with Robert S. Allen, he anonymously published a book called Washington Merry-Go-Round and its sequel. When the Sun discovered Pearson had co-authored these books, he was promptly fired. Late in 1932, Pearson and Allen secured a contract with the Scripps–Howard syndicate, United Features, to syndicate a column called "Washington Merry-Go-Round". It first appeared in Eleanor "Cissy" Patterson's Washington Herald on November 17, 1932. But as World War II escalated in Europe, Pearson's strong support of Franklin D. Roosevelt, in opposition to Patterson and the Herald isolationist position, led to an acrimonious termination of Pearson's and Allen's contract with the Herald. In 1941 The Washington Post picked up the contract for the "Washington Merry-Go-Round".
Radio, film, and other media From 1935 to 1936, Allen and Pearson broadcast a 15-minute program twice a week on the Mutual Broadcasting System. They continued with a 30-minute music and news show, Listen America, in 1939–1940, ending this partnership in 1941. They also wrote a comic strip, Hap Hopper, Washington Correspondent, which was drawn from 1939 to 1943 by Jack Sparling, and from 1943 onward by Al Plastino.
Pearson continued alone on NBC with Drew Pearson Comments from 1941 to 1953 for a variety of sponsors (Serutan, Nutrex, Lee Hats, Adam Hats). His commentary was broadcast through 1968 on the now-defunct Intermountain Network.
In addition to radio, Pearson appeared in a number of Hollywood movies, such as RKO's 1945 propaganda movie Betrayal from the East, and the 1951 science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still. In the former movie, Pearson referred to an exposé that accused Japanese Americans of being part of a Japanese conspiracy to engage in acts of espionage and terrorism. The movie was based on the 1943 best-selling book Betrayal from the East: The Inside Story of Japanese Spies in America by Alan Hynd. In the latter film, Pearson (playing himself) is the only journalist who urges calm and restraint (versus the fear and paranoia evoked by his colleagues) while Washington is panicked by the escape of the alien visitor Klaatu. Furthermore, Pearson appeared as himself in City Across the River (1949).
In 1947, Drew used his newspaper column and radio to announce his plan for the American Friendship train, a nation-wide humanitarian aid effort ran by the people of America for the people of Europe. In 1952 and 1953, Pearson hosted The Drew Pearson Show on the ABC and DuMont Television networks.
On a January 8, 1950, broadcast of CBS Radio's The Jack Benny Program, Pearson was at the center of a notorious joke. Announcer Don Wilson was to say he heard Jack had bought a new suit on Drew Pearson's program, but misspoke Pearson's name: "Drear Pooson". Later in the show, comedic actor Frank Nelson was asked by Benny if he was the doorman. Nelson replied with a line surreptitiously given him by the show's writers, "Who do you think I am? Drear Pooson?", 4m56s until 5m19s
"Washington Merry-Go-Round" The "Merry-Go-Round" column started as a result of Pearson's anonymous publication in 1931 of the book, Washington Merry-Go-Round, co-written with Robert Allen, the Washington bureau chief for The Christian Science Monitor. The book was a collection of muckraking news items concerning key figures in public life that challenged the journalistic code of the day. In 1932 it was followed by a second book, More Merry-Go-Round. Although they were exposed as the publishers and forced to resign their positions, their books were successful enough so that Pearson and Allen could become co-authors of the syndicated column, the "Merry-Go-Round", that same year. Also in 1932, the original book was made into a film of the same name by Columbia Pictures, directed by James Cruze, and starring Lee Tracy and Constance Cummings.
According to his one-time partner, Jack Anderson, Pearson saw journalism as a means to challenge those he thought to be working against the public interest. He himself had the reputation of a person who put principles over profit. Refusing to carry libel insurance or gain the support of his syndicate to finance libel judgments against him, Pearson's journalism resulted in more than 120 libel actions against him. However, he only had to pay a settlement in one legal case.
During World War II, Pearson's column not only revealed embarrassing news items, but expanded to criticize the Roosevelt administration's conduct of the war, in particular U.S. foreign policy regarding Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union. As a supporter of the Soviet Union's struggle against Nazi Germany, Pearson demanded that the Allied Command create a second front in Europe in 1943 to assist the Soviets. When Pearson's demands were not met, he began to openly criticize Secretary of State Cordell Hull, James Dunn, and other State Department officials, whom Pearson accused of hating Soviet Russia. After one of Pearson's more virulent columns accused Secretary of State Hull and his deputies of a conscious policy to "bleed Russia white", President Roosevelt convened a press conference in which he angrily accused Pearson of printing statements that were a lie "from beginning to end", jeopardizing United Nations unity, and committing an act of bad faith towards his own nation. The president concluded his statement by calling Pearson "a chronic liar".
Pearson was the first to report the 1943 incident of General George S. Patton's slapping soldier Charles Kuhl. It was the first of two slapping-incidents, when General Patton, who denied the existence of combat stress reaction, struck and badly abused soldiers whom he had encountered during their evaluation at military field hospitals. Allied Headquarters denied that Patton had received either an official reprimand or removal from field command, but confirmed that Patton had slapped a soldier with his gloves.Farago, Ladislas, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph, p. 312. Demands for Patton to be recalled and sent home soon arose in Congress as well as in newspaper articles and editorials across the country."Command: Conduct Unbecoming", Time, December 6, 1943. However, public opinion was largely favorable to Patton."Patton and Truth", Time, December 6, 1943.D'Este, Carlo, Patton: A Genius For War, pp. 543–544. While Patton was later reassigned and his career advancement slowed, he was not relieved, but continued to serve in the European theater, where he would later command the U.S. Third Army.Wallace, Brenton G., Patton and his Third Army, Harrisburg, PA: Military Service Publishing Co. (1946), pp. 194–195: In 281 days of continuous combat, Patton's Third Army advanced further and faster than any army in military history. Pearson's broadcast and subsequent article on Patton's alleged behavior sufficiently raised the suspicions of Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson that he requested Army General Joseph T. McNarney to "put an inspector on the War Department to see who has been leaking out information. Pearson's articles are about three-quarters false but there's just a germ of truth in them that someone must have given him."Hirshson, Stanley P., General Patton: A Soldier's Life, p. 426.
After Pearson reported that General Douglas MacArthur was actively campaigning for his own promotion, MacArthur sued Pearson for defamation, but dropped the suit after Pearson threatened to publish love letters from MacArthur to his Eurasian paramour, Isabel Rosario Cooper.
Post-war investigations In February 1946, Pearson revealed the existence of a Canadian ring of Soviet spies who had given away secret information about the atomic bomb, and he hinted that the espionage scandal might extend to the U.S. as well. The U.S. government had kept the news secret for several months until Pearson broke the story in a series of radio broadcasts. It is possible that he was tipped off by a government official who wanted to turn U.S. public opinion against the Soviet Union, possibly even FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, according to historian Amy Knight.Craig, Campbell, and Sergey Radchenko. The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. 121-122, 133.
Pearson also played a role in the downfall of New Jersey Congressman John Parnell Thomas, Chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, in 1948. After revelations in Pearson's column, Thomas was investigated and later convicted of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government for hiring friends who never worked for him, then depositing their paychecks into his personal accounts. Pearson was a staunch opponent of the actions of Senator Joseph McCarthy and other attempts by Congress to investigate Soviet and communist influence in government and the media, and he eagerly denounced the allegations by Senator McCarthy and the House Committee.
In May 1948, Pearson was among the journalists who reported on the business problems of Preston Tucker and his Tucker Corporation. A former policeman during the Prohibition era, Tucker was a self-made car-designer and businessman. Struggling to finance his high-flying plans in the design and safety of his cars, he had attempted "to raise money through unconventional means, including selling dealership rights for a car that didn't exist yet." When the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Justice Department started to investigate the case in 1947, his first annual report, which he initially had refused to produce, resulted in a deficit of $5,651,208. Tucker took the news of the latest investigation to the newspapers, publishing full-page ads that read: "My associates and myself and the Tucker Corp. have been investigated time & again . . . Now once more we are being investigated." Although he was acquitted of fraud charges, Tucker's firm went bankrupt in 1950.
James Forrestal